Joh’s Permanent Weight Loss Success Story
In the last ten years or so, I think that I have been around a size 14/16, and at 5´3″ it was too much for my liking. This is Joh’s Permanent Weight Loss, and permanent is the important word here.So I was pretty much always on or falling off a diet of some sort. I could yo yo anywhere between 10 and 13 stone. When I got married in 2002, I decided to do something about my weight and lost 2 stone doing a horrid Atkins type diet. It worked very effectively to get the weight off but as soon as the wedding was over, weight crept back on, then there was pregnancy then it felt out of control again. Last summer I reached 13 stone and wasn’t fitting into anything so I’d reached desperation point again, and that was when I heard about Martin and Marion, and the Gastric Mind Band Therapy.
Going through the Gastric Mind Band Therapy wasn’t an easy financial decision. My husband and I spoke about it and it feels like a frivolous expenditure – part of you knows if you put less food in your mouth you won’t be overweight. But I’d got to the point where I couldn’t do it by myself.
Joh’s Permanent Weight Loss. A personable and articulate bilingual legal assistant, Joh lives with her husband and 5 year old son. She last lost weight in the run-up to her wedding nearly eight years ago.
All of the Gastric Mind Band® (GMB) client testimonials on this site are the clients own words and opinions. The GMB treatment is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Read our full disclaimer here.
Joh’s Permanent Weight Loss
But it worked, just like Martin and Marion told me it would, I’ve lost 56lb to date. I am adamant that the Gastric Mind Band element played a part in the success of the treatment. It is a big part in the beginning as a kick start of the mental process, but surprisingly I have found the counselling is the thing that has kept me motivated. I think that people who would have the actual gastric band operation would lose weight as a result of a physical restriction but I am thrilled that I have lost and am maintaining the weight loss as a result of a mental restriction.. It gives me a feeling that I have never had before, that I am not scared to eat or be around food as I can control it. Martin is quite blunt in his approach to obesity and weight management. I think that I respond better to straight talking, and it also helped that he had had a problem with food too.
I am more confident, less defensive and less defeatist. Before when I dieted I had no doubt that I could lose the weight but always felt it was temporary, like I knew that I would always let myself down later and put it back on. This time I feel different. I don’t have that dread. The weight loss has been fairly consistent. I’m happy with the way that it has come off; before I always wanted the quick fix and this time, as a result of the treatment, I have been happier to be on a longer road moving in the right direction.
I was a generous 14, maybe a 16. I’m now below target. My target was 10st 4lb, and I’m now 9st 6lb. I had a target that was what I was the day I got married. I had it in my head – I was very happy with myself, it was a very happy memory that I had and I didn’t have any kind of crisis about what I put on at that time in my life. I thought if I could try to get back to that it would be ideal for me.
But when I got to 10st 4lb, because of the lifestyle change that I’ve now got, the weight was still coming off without me having to do too much so I thought maybe that isn’t the natural weight that my body would be happy with. Joh’s experienced the sense of weight discrimination in her professional life: When I worked as an actress, being a bigger person was part of my character she says. I never got the leading lady stuff, I was always the friend, or whatever. You sort of accept who you are. And it’s not that I was 100% happy, or confident, being bigger. Now that I’m slimmer I’ve changed my sphere of reference. Someone called me small recently, and I’ve never been called small.
People don’t directly say you’re overweight, do they – they might say you’ve got a round face, or you look well, or that’s a nice handbag, or talk about other things not directly related to your weight so as to avoid it. Read more of Joh’s Permanent Weight Loss story below.
At drama college, they kind of make you believe that everything’s possible – you can be Lady Macbeth if you really want it. And that you can be the leading lady. But when you get out looking for work, doing auditions day in day out, you know after a while they go ‘no’ and it’s absolutely on physical appearance.
But I worked that to my advantage. I worked in comedy. I did theatre work and a lot of touring work, and I did most of my comedy work on cruise ships, that and presenting, which was great. I was able to get away with being a bit more risqué with the kind of comedy I was doing because people weren’t threatened by me physically. You’ve got Dawn French, Jo Brand, Victoria Wood, all of those people were my heroes when I was growing up – of course I admired them for their talent but also maybe I wonder if I had some aspiration to be like them because they were accepted as they were because they were larger.
Weight Loss Hypnosis – Joh’s Permanent Weight Loss Story
To start with I preferred the thought of eating less than doing exercise! Now I exercise in front of the telly with a DVD. I move all the furniture, put my stuff on, sweat buckets, run around and look a complete idiot but I do it. I’d be mortified if anybody came to the door – but I do it four or five times a week, and that motivation has definitely grown. It’s thinking like a person who isn’t controlled by food. A slim person doesn’t think ‘oh I don’t want to do any exercise.’ It might not be something they particularly love doing, but it’s something they know is a necessary part of being the way they want to be, it’s something they’ve got to do. Like brushing your teeth. There are times I don’t want to do it, but I bypass that now, put my stuff on and do it and feel great.
There are times I think I could possibly push it and overeat if I wanted to , but I don’t really want to. Because I’m a very controlling person, in my conscious mind after the GMB session I knew obviously I hadn’t had the procedure. My conscious mind was saying ‘no you haven’t’. But because I’d started to lower my portion sizes before the band was fitted, I was already eating a smaller amount so I didn’t really test it to begin with. But then later I found I couldn’t overeat. I have actually been sick.
At Christmas I think I must have tried to overeat and I did actually get to the point I was feeling quite ill, the food wouldn’t go down and yes I was sick. It was a very powerful demonstration, especially because I was very sceptical. Part of me was always a little bit unsure, but now it has made a big change, which I can’t explain, which infuriates me because it’s been so subtle. I think I’d reached a point where I was desperate, or unhappy, with the way things were going and there’s a part of the therapy – the CBT – which I found very helpful. The imagery of standing at the fork in the road. I could go down one way, the way you’re used to, the way you eat, regret it, see how you look, feel unattractive, know this could go on for years, feel depressed, all visualised with son and husband at your side. It was such a horrible image. Read more of Joh’s Permanent Weight Loss story.
It’s harder – it’s not a miracle, wand-waving kind of thing. A friend said she’d love to have that done and not have to do anything and I told her it’s not like that. You have to be committed to it. Keep yourself focussed and motivated. I think if I were to get to the point of wanting to ‘fall off the wagon’, that imagery is so strong and the positive reaction I felt looking at the other side as well would make a difference. Very much so. I can remember Martin asking me if I’d considered the health risks of being overweight. I hadn’t. In all my time of feeling fat and frumpy and not being able to feel socially acceptable, the health risks came really low down on the list of priorities and now I’m quite disgusted that they did because I owe it to my son to be healthy and have that kind of pride in myself and I need to show him. He’s going to have learned behaviour. If he sees that not only Daddy goes out running but Mummy does exercise too and we don’t eat crap at home.
She sees that her weight issues affected other relationships too. I’m aware that probably my relationships with women were affected by the way I felt about my weight and the way I saw myself and the way I saw them. I always felt a bit insignificant, a bit as if nobody would ever say anything complimentary about me in terms of my physical appearance. That was quite upsetting. But now I don’t feel that. I met family I hadn’t seen for donkey’s years, and they were saying I looked well and this time I didn’t take that as meaning big and fat! I’m finding that I’m much more open to social relationships. I think obviously my husband notices I don’t have crises like I used to, however even though I’m three and a bit stone lighter than I was, I say to him ‘Do you think I’m getting fatter, are you sure my tummy’s not getting bigger?’ And he says ‘No don’t be an idiot! Read more about Joh’s Permanent Weight Loss.
My normal thing now, would be if I think I feel hungry, have a glass of water, wait a bit and see if I still am. But it’s not an emergency. It’s not something you have to act on immediately! As an overweight person, you tend to feel that you think I must have a cake, I must stop what I’m doing immediately, get one now. I always thought I might lose weight but I’ll never look slim because I’ve had a big chest but now I’ve lost it all over. It’s made my husband less happy though! For me I don’t think there are any negatives.
Positives – well too many to try to explain. Things come up on a daily basis. It’s made me much more positive. I think everything you learn as part of the process although it may be painful to admit it because there have been things you’ve been deluding yourself about, home truths, they’re all difficult to swallow at the beginning. But once you can deal with that and look at it from a positive viewpoint, which is very much where this process is different from diets I’ve done; I’ve reached the point of being very unhappy and disappointed, and feeling unworthy. And that’s no place to start a positive change in your life. You shouldn’t start anything because you hate the way you are. Pride comes into it. I think I have more pride in myself now. Being able to be proud not only of what I’ve achieved, but of not being insignificant.
I hadn’t got to the point of actually considering surgery. I’m a bit of a coward about anything like that so I probably wouldn’t have gone that far. But I think I was running out of options. I’d done this diet and that, they hadn’t worked. You name it I’d tried it. I thought ‘I’ve either got to do this and it’s going to work’ or I have to face the possibility that I’m going to stay like this. Maybe that’s why the crossroads visualisation worked so well for me. Seeing, feeling, where I’d be in a year if I hadn’t made the change. I’d pretty much got to the point I thought if I don’t do something now I don’t think I’m going to be able to make the change. Which is crazy because you can always change.
I can remember being on diets before and forcing myself to go the gym, and if it got to a month on the diet or at the gym and I considered I hadn’t lost enough to be sufficient recompense for the work I’d put in, that’d be it. I’d think ‘there’s no point; obviously I’m going to be fat no matter what I do’, and I’m going to give it all up and go and console myself with a packet of biscuits.’ That was probably the biggest difference for me. There are 365 days in the year, three meals in the day. I’m 3 stone overweight I want to lose it in 12 weeks; but you didn’t put it on in 12 weeks. You’re so desperate you forget that. You’re willing to put yourself and your body through all these extreme things. Looking back now it seems so ridiculous. I’m quite cross with myself that I put up with that kind of ridiculous behaviour – my own stupid behaviour, of course – and endured it for so long.
Joh’s Permanent Weight Loss continued, I can remember one part of the operation under Hypnosis. I remember snatches but not the whole thing. I can remember something touched my hand at about the time I was ‘having the pre-med’ and I actually jumped. “When I came out I didn’t believe it, I almost feel like a bit of a traitor saying that. I understand that the gastric band element is the hook. It’s the thing that catches people’s imagination but for me it was by quite a long way NOT the most significant part of the process. Now I have the information and the knowledge; though of course I probably already had it. It’s wrapped up in a way I can relate to.
I can remember one time Martin said in answer to me bemoaning something in my life, ‘Well boo hoo. What are you going to do about it, are you going to spend the rest of your life worrying about that or are you going to draw a line and move forward?’ I’d felt I had a right to feel like that and in one fell swoop he said ‘get over yourself’. Well to be honest that was what I needed! It was a revelation to me to eat the things I like first off a plate, and only eat the things I like less if I’ve still got room – simple! I do think there are overweight people who say they are 100% happy in their skin”, she says. I think if that’s true, bloody great. Fabulous. I know I wasn’t. If you’re not you can’t just moan about it. If you’ve got something you don’t like and want to change it, why don’t you. This was Joh’s Permanent Weight Loss story.
